Half-Life 2 Level Designer Interview

Pratt: Is there anything you've always wanted to do with your levels and were able to do for the first time in HL2? Is there anything you still want to do that isn't possible with current technology?

Dario: The complexity of experience possible given HL2's sophistication (new entity I/O system, physics, AI manipulation, sound engine and graphic effects) opens up an amazingly large set of possibilities. With the HL2 experience we have only scratched the surface of what the Source engine is capable of doing. One of my favourite things to do is to play around with our actors (NPCs). They are so sophisticated that you can virtually create film sets and cue points in Hammer, and dialogue for the actors to speak and watch them play out in the engine. It reminds me of watching the DVDs for Lord of the Rings where they described the AI system that governs all their background CGI characters. We can do the same sorts of things in Source quite easily (but with fewer than thousands of actors of course).